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Bulletin of the Santayana Society, No. 32 Fall 2014

page52

Santayana's Way of Life and Ours
Originally presented at the 23rd World Congress of Philosophy in Athens, Greece,
August 2013, where the conference theme was "Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of
Life."
Rising at seven, breakfast in the room — tea, a soft-boiled egg, and toast.
At the desk by eight, writing till noon, then a bath, dressed by one o'clock
— black suit and tie, felt hat. Lunch at the Roma, or some such restaurant,
alone or with a friend or other visitor — real food at last and wine, good simple
wine. In the afternoon, weather permitting, a walk to the Pincio — a good decent
walk — to sit in the garden and read the newspaper or part of a book, broken off so
as to be easily carried. Back at the hotel, by five, writing letters until dinner at six in
the room. Perhaps taking in an evening concert, or more usually reading or writing
letters for the rest of the evening. In bed by 10:30 or 11.
This was Santayana's way of life when he lived at the Bristol Hostel in Rome
in the thirties: determined, but without stress, solitary, but not detached — a life
conducive to both focused contemplation and desultory ambling. It was more or
less his manner of living, wherever he was, after leaving the United States in 1912.
What did he write about? Essence, Matter, Truth, and Spirit — his four Realms
of Being. The uncertainly of knowledge, but the belief that all existence has a
material basis. That consciousness or spirit is a fundamentally different form or
existence from the matter that gives birth to it. Interests and importance emerge
along with perception, feelings, and thought. But spirit has interests other than the
animal interests of survival and reproduction. Delight in the play of light and sound
— the eternal essences that make up the data of perception— and beyond them, the
imagination that, once it is freed from the obligation to tell the truth about the world,
may be directed at divining the truths about the soul. Imaginative sympathy is the
key to both self-understanding and charitable empathy toward others — seeking the
good in what they love. Spirit, which starts out as a servant of the world, becomes
its guest when the world supports its true vocation: contemplation of the eternal.
Santayana was no other-worldly mystic. "I frankly cleave to the Greeks," he
wrote, "not to the Indians, and I aspire to be a rational animal rather than a pure
spirit.1" By this, he meant he preferred a civilized, orderly life that freed the mind to
follow its own inclinations, tempered by good company and laughter.
I do not mean to suggest that his life was without difficulty. Santayana was
brought to the United States, not knowing English, at the age of eight, and although
he came to be one of the masters of English prose, he always felt like a foreigner
in the land that educated him and gave him his career. He studied in Europe
and traveled there almost every year once he started teaching. He grew tired of
teaching and professorial life and left both Harvard and America as soon he could
manage it financially. As the event that made that possible — bis mother's death
— approached, Santayana went to his mother's house and burned all his letters to
her, finding them impersonal and uninformative. He did not wait for his mother to
die from her dementing illness, but left her by steamship, never to return, in care of
his sister, Josephine, who had not, as he wrote, "learned the modern scientific way

Santayana's Way of Life and Ours
Originally presented at the 23rd World Congress of Philosophy in Athens, Greece,
August 2013, where the conference theme was "Philosophy as Inquiry and Way of
Life."
Rising at seven, breakfast in the room — tea, a soft-boiled egg, and toast.
At the desk by eight, writing till noon, then a bath, dressed by one o'clock
— black suit and tie, felt hat. Lunch at the Roma, or some such restaurant,
alone or with a friend or other visitor — real food at last and wine, good simple
wine. In the afternoon, weather permitting, a walk to the Pincio — a good decent
walk — to sit in the garden and read the newspaper or part of a book, broken off so
as to be easily carried. Back at the hotel, by five, writing letters until dinner at six in
the room. Perhaps taking in an evening concert, or more usually reading or writing
letters for the rest of the evening. In bed by 10:30 or 11.
This was Santayana's way of life when he lived at the Bristol Hostel in Rome
in the thirties: determined, but without stress, solitary, but not detached — a life
conducive to both focused contemplation and desultory ambling. It was more or
less his manner of living, wherever he was, after leaving the United States in 1912.
What did he write about? Essence, Matter, Truth, and Spirit — his four Realms
of Being. The uncertainly of knowledge, but the belief that all existence has a
material basis. That consciousness or spirit is a fundamentally different form or
existence from the matter that gives birth to it. Interests and importance emerge
along with perception, feelings, and thought. But spirit has interests other than the
animal interests of survival and reproduction. Delight in the play of light and sound
— the eternal essences that make up the data of perception— and beyond them, the
imagination that, once it is freed from the obligation to tell the truth about the world,
may be directed at divining the truths about the soul. Imaginative sympathy is the
key to both self-understanding and charitable empathy toward others — seeking the
good in what they love. Spirit, which starts out as a servant of the world, becomes
its guest when the world supports its true vocation: contemplation of the eternal.
Santayana was no other-worldly mystic. "I frankly cleave to the Greeks," he
wrote, "not to the Indians, and I aspire to be a rational animal rather than a pure
spirit.1" By this, he meant he preferred a civilized, orderly life that freed the mind to
follow its own inclinations, tempered by good company and laughter.
I do not mean to suggest that his life was without difficulty. Santayana was
brought to the United States, not knowing English, at the age of eight, and although
he came to be one of the masters of English prose, he always felt like a foreigner
in the land that educated him and gave him his career. He studied in Europe
and traveled there almost every year once he started teaching. He grew tired of
teaching and professorial life and left both Harvard and America as soon he could
manage it financially. As the event that made that possible — bis mother's death
— approached, Santayana went to his mother's house and burned all his letters to
her, finding them impersonal and uninformative. He did not wait for his mother to
die from her dementing illness, but left her by steamship, never to return, in care of
his sister, Josephine, who had not, as he wrote, "learned the modern scientific way